


Midsummer Flowers

by Illuminahsti



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Flower Language, Other, whoops I wrote a water for chocolate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 22:24:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14757411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illuminahsti/pseuds/Illuminahsti
Summary: Damien's flower shop draws all kinds





	Midsummer Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a fic mash-up prompt: Flower Shop AU & Accidental Marriage. See the end for flower symbolism. 
> 
> Come talk to me, or leave me prompts on my tumblr: AlecJmarsh.tumblr.com

The flower shop is Damien’s, technically. Rilla grows all the flowers, of course. She knows all the medical uses and Latin names and how to preserve them. Damien is the romantic and the flower arranger, and he makes most of the money for them. People only go to Rilla when they need something strong and purposeful.

Even Arum, Lord of the Swamp, knows that Rilla is the best at what she does. He skulks around the back of their shop and argues about the best way to dry monkshood. He always buys something and acts like he’s doing them a favor. It’s really because no one can grow herbs like Rilla can, and no one can make conversation like Rilla does, and he doesn’t want to be sent away. He trades his seeds for her fertilizer and pretends not to sulk when she outdoes him at horticulture.

Damien’s bouquets are unique. He sometimes mixes in basil or mint into the greenery, and instead of baby’s breath he uses the small flowers from vegetables that have gone to seed. Nobody thinks to question them, because the hothouse flowers that Rilla grows steal everyone’s attention.

Damien knows the language of flowers intimately, and he can explain a lovers’ heart with his arrangements. When a customer comes in, he spends forever asking them what they want the bouquet to say, prompting them for deeper emotions. They leave confused, feeling that maybe they wasted their time and definitely that they overpaid–this nervous boy couldn’t possibly have the talent people say he does. But somehow, the bouquets they get are exactly what they wanted, and they always achieve their ends. Jasmine and fern shouldn’t be enough to kindle a romance, but it is if Damien arranges it.

Arum knows beauty when he sees it, and he spends more and more time in the front of the shop. Sometimes he gives Damien an opinion, but he quickly learns not to. Monster custom and human are so different, and the flowers mean very different things in their two languages.

Arranging flowers is the only time Damien seems at ease–he knows he is good at this, at least. He is beautiful, when he works, focused and sure of himself, strong hands delicately changing out stems until everything is to his exact standards.

***

Exotic plants become part of the shop and the garden. Arum’s presence is felt even when he is gone. He will leave sometimes for a few days, maybe a few weeks, but he always comes back with an evasive explanation and a new cutting for Rilla.

And then he’s gone for more than a month. Five weeks, and then six go by. Rilla and Damien wonder about him, wonder if he finally got bored with them, wonder if they did something to offend him. Rilla pretends she enjoys being able to finally work in peace, but she prunes her plants a little too aggressively and overwaters the lilies until they droop. Damien’s arrangements lose a little of their shine. Hyacinth and lilac and heart’s ease begin to feature in nearly all of them. A husband buys a bouquet for his wife’s birthday, and she is filled with a strange longing for a place she can never go.

Arum returns two days before the midsummer festival with a kink in his tail and without an offering for Rilla. Rilla hand him a broom as if he never left. Damien only whispers “I am glad you have returned, Lord Arum,” but his hands are shaking so badly that he shreds the rose in his hands.

Arum evades questions, but this time, it is not out of impatience or secrecy. He wants to tell these humans where he was, and knows it would only endanger them. So he sweeps the shop and brings Damien armfuls of summer flowers. When the afternoon stretches out long and hot and sleepy, Arum stretches out on the floor in a patch of sun and watches them work. Damien has dozens of wedding wreaths hanging around the shop, and he continues to add more as the day goes on. Of course—midsummer is the day when humans think they will meet their true love. But even with that little superstition, surely not many humans marry on the day? And yet Damien continues to work.

***

Midsummer dawns hot and bright. Damien and Rilla rise with the sun and by the time people are in the street, their shop is open. They are so busy that neither of them asks Arum why he never left in the night, and for that he is grateful. As unsafe as the forest is, he still could have—should have—left. Instead, he stays in the back garden, safely hidden behind the dark leaves of Rilla’s trailing vines. The shade is already warm and heady with the smell of earth, and the sounds from the shop are muffled.

The first wedding wreaths are sold to three giggling friends, who buy up flashy wreaths of plumeria and hibiscus. Single men and women pick out their own, looking to Rilla for her nods of approval. Damien is too busy making more to pay the customers any mind. 

Then comes a family, two parents and their three little girls, who crown themselves in summer daisies, and Arum understands. These aren’t wedding wreaths; they are merely flowers for summer luck. Monsters of the swamp use flowers to bind themselves to the spirit of the earth, but the humans have no such customs. Even knowing that, it is strange to Arum to see so many people don flowers in a way that means only one thing to him.

The shop closes around midday, when there are no more flowers to sell. Rilla locks the door and moves close to Damien. She leans in to whisper something, her hand in his, a secret smile on her face. His answering smile is tired and adoring. As Arum watches, he settles a crown of deep red amaryllis lilies and delicate silvered mugwort onto her hair. Rilla returns the gesture with a crown of honeysuckle, mugwort, and rosebuds. They are framed in a beam of noonday light that makes their dark skin glow golden and their curls shine. They make such a beautiful pair that Arum doesn’t dare breathe, lest the rattle of his throat give him away.

Then Rilla looks towards him and the moment is broken. “Come on out, Lord Arum. Damien made you a midsummer wreath too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Flower Language, in order of appearance: 
> 
> Indian Jasmine: Attachment  
> Fern: Sincerity
> 
> Hyacinth, Lilac, Heart's Ease: chosen because of their violet color 
> 
> Plumeria, Hibiscus: Tropical flowers that would fit into the Second Citadel's environment
> 
> Amaryllis lilies: :) (Pride, Splendid beauty)  
> Mugwort: Tranquility, because Rilla is Damien's tranquility 
> 
> Honeysuckle: ;) ;) ;) (Means bonds of love)   
> Rosebuds: Pure love. Roses are a romantic symbol, but rosebuds seem to me to be the gentler, more cautious version
> 
> Lord Arum's crown is made of honeysuckle, amaryllis, and violets (faithfulness)


End file.
